


The Lindworm

by InMutualWeirdness



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Anthea is definitely badass, F/M, Gen, Magical Realism, Mycroft may be evil, Papa Holmes doesn't deserve a real name, Papa Holmes is a jerk, fairy tale AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-05 07:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InMutualWeirdness/pseuds/InMutualWeirdness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Holmes family needs an heir. Infertile, Lady Holmes turns to experimental medicine for help. But her children are a little peculiar. Her eldest child especially.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Mother

**Author's Note:**

> For the Let's Write Sherlock Amnesty Challenge (wow, that was a lot of capital letters).

They say dragons have scales. Brilliant scales, large and beautiful, smooth to the touch, like sharkskin (if you rub the right way. You must rub them the right way). To a dragon, they are nothing, shed intermittently in their lairs. But each one is valuable beyond imagining, each one a careful thief’s retirement package. 

You must be a very careful thief, though. Very few will make it to a dragon’s den alive. Even fewer will make it to the dragon alive. And no one leaves a dragon alive.

 

\--------

 

Lady Holmes needed an heir. 

It was tradition more than anything. Even as an Esquire, Lord Holmes was so wrapped up in government and politics that he rarely spent a day on their estate, beautiful though he claimed it to be. People may have whispered jokes involving her French lineage, but obviously, she gave them no heed. She was a Holmes, and she could do as she wished. 

But this was a matter without compromise. The Holmes family had become great and powerful in recent times, and to let all her husband’s bitter work go to waste would be unthinkable. (She was only indifferent, not vengeful.) Coming from a high family herself, she knew the importance of inheritance, of good genes and good work passed on to another generation. 

And if the house was becoming a little empty for her, what of it? She just needed an heir. 

That was all.

 

\--------

 

Tuesday night, his plane came in. And she greeted him at the door, when the car showed up. 

“I missed you,” she said, smiling, taking him by the hand. “I’ve missed you so much.” 

The morning after, she woke up to an empty bed. She sat up, looking out the window. The curtains were open to a cloudy sky. 

She sighed. When he came home next, she would know.

 

\--------

 

Tinted windows were nice. It allowed her a moment of privacy as she sat on the soft leather seat. They in no way held back the press--nothing could. But she could delay them. She needed that right now. 

Had anybody known, it would’ve been an embarrassment. Her husband had become, if possible, colder still afterward. 

She could already imagine the headlines on the tabloids. Lady Holmes, the famous femme fatale, legs open but womb closed. Maybe it would’ve been better for someone like her to be infertile, it would silence the idiots accusing her of abortion to avoid the unwanted children her “carnal acts” would surely have gotten her. 

They would’ve have understood. Conception is often beyond some people. 

But not her. She had tricks up her sleeve. 

The car pulled up to a plain looking building. She opened the door and stepped out, heels clicking on the sidewalk.

 

\--------

 

The medicine was there. Two pills, one red, one white. 

A boy, or a girl, the scientist (midwife--what a strange title) had said. A boy, or a girl. 

As if she could choose. 

There was nothing wrong with powerful women--in fact, she’d have liked one. A daughter, with her looks and intellect. It was an appealing prospect indeed. 

But she would have to be flawless. Any defect would’ve been attacked and picked apart. And though the drug was precise enough to determine gender, it could not possibly give her exactly what she wanted. What her daughter would’ve wanted. 

(“I want my daughter to be a fool.” Fitzgerald had put it best.) 

A son, perhaps? An heir in the traditional sense. And maybe he would bring her husband home. 

She had to stop there. Would she want that? A son would either bring him home, or it would do nothing. 

Either way, it would make her no better than before. And who knew how the son would turn out? There was no guarantee that he would be capable either. It was a drug, but it was still their gametes. 

She wanted an heir. She’d be getting a child. And she knew they were two different things. 

The white pill sat, sweet as anything she had ever tasted, on her tongue. She swallowed. 

On impulse, she grabbed the red pill in her hand. Before she knew it, she was drinking down the glass of water with greedy gulps. The water washed the sweet taste away, leaving the bitter tang of medicine.

 

\----------

 

Oddly enough, she did not get a daughter. 

Perhaps she should’ve known better, attempting something like that. Medicine and drugs always were iffy things, things that needed testing. Rigorous testing, just to make sure that it didn’t end up going awry. She could’ve died from an overdose, reproductive organs malfunctioning due to some unexpected complication and reaction. 

Instead, she gave birth to a boy. A boy of sorts, anyway. He didn’t cry, only breathing soft and controlled when he came into the world. She didn’t even see him, not really. 

The nurse almost dropped him. “His breath!” she cried. “It burns!” 

They’d taken him away after that, and as she strained, wordless and senseless from pain, to catch a glimpse of her baby, her son, she saw scales. 

A few years later, she gave birth to a second son. It was beautiful and perfect, and compared to the first birth, relatively easy. Because her husband had showed up this time, he got to name the child. 

She always thought that the Holmes family names were a bit ridiculous. But this one wasn’t so bad. She whispered it to herself, sometimes. Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes. 

Perhaps she could get used to it.

 

\------------

 

Eventually, even her second son went away, and her husband too. She was alone in the big, big house now. Older too, and a little more bitter. Age does not make everything better. 

Sherlock did not want to be an heir. He wanted nothing less than the responsibility, the restrictions. And he wasn’t suited for it either, having no patience for politics. Or a relationship. The Holmes family would die heirless. 

And even though she felt absolutely nothing about her husband, Lady Holmes felt strange about the whole ordeal. That it had been a waste, that it had brought her nothing. That she had failed. 

One day, after she had stopped trying to drag her son off the streets, (and she wept bitterly about that, such a brilliant mind dulled and broken by drugs. He was her son, after all) the doorbell rang. She rose to get it, unsure of who would be calling on her now, in her age, in her relative obscurity. Nobody came to Lady Holmes. 

A servant had beaten her to the door. He stood aside as soon as he saw her come in. “He wishes to see you, milady.” 

She ignored him, looking only at the visitor. A tall, confident man, dressed in a dapper, expensive suit that didn’t seem to fit him exactly. He carried an umbrella in one hand, tip on the ground like a cane. She didn’t remember the weather for the day, but it certainly hadn’t been raining. 

“Can I help you?” she asked the stranger. 

“I believe you can,” he said. He spoke like a man in power, a man used to getting what he wanted. She stood up taller, wary of him. 

“Who are you?” she demanded. 

He tilted his head, placid face interrupted by a quick flash of amusement. “Do you not recognize me? I understand it’s been a while.” 

“What on earth do you mean?” He wasn’t young, but he was certainly not old enough to be a former colleague of her husband. 

He smiled now, and it made her shiver. “Why, I’m your son, of course!” he exclaimed. His eyes flashed, green when they should’ve been blue. “Your firstborn. Your heir.” 

She gasped. 

“Oh Mummy,” he said, in a facsimile of filial love, “I’ve missed you so much.”


	2. The Thief

She was nobody, for the most part. But you’d be surprised how much people said when nobody was listening.

“Have you heard--?”

“Some bigshot Holmes fellow--”

“--sitting high on the ancestral pile of his--”

“But it is his. His Daddy’s dead and his Mum’s stuck with him.”

There was no shortage of words, even in a place as tight-lipped as where she worked. And some of the rumours were completely unbelievable, at least until those people got promoted and the rumour mill dried up. Most wouldn’t realize it, but she had a keen eye for these types of things. Administration changes would be very hard to miss, especially when efficiency suddenly doubled. She’d been in the business long enough to be able to tell these sorts of things anyway.

There were times when she questioned and doubted. The whole hostage situation did stretch her disbelief a bit, but she supposed that even dragons could have mommy issues. It didn't matter; a dragon was a dragon, and a plan was a plan. So when word got around that the new boss was looking for a woman, she took things into her own hands.

“And you are?”

“Lilith.”

“Interesting name there. Is that supposed to be a hint?”

“That’s not why I came here, Ms. Adler.”

All the good rogues know when to get help.

"Easy enough,” Irene said, a cigarette in hand. “He may be a dragon, but Lady and Lord Holmes are human. If he was born of man, he shall have the heart of a man. And if you have the heart of a man, then a fellow man--or a woman--can find it.”

“Shall I offer myself up to him, then?" she immediately asked. "He’s asking for a wife.” He wasn't appealing to her, but if it were meaningless, then the job held more importance.

“He’s still thick skinned. Or shall I say, scaled.” She breathed out smoke. “I wonder if he will actually find a woman appealing in that way. No, darling, you’ll have to peel down deep to find him that way.”

She thought about this for a while. “I may have an idea.”

“Do you?”

“As if I’d tell.”

The Woman smiled condescendingly. “Don’t you know? All of my services come with payment.”

She outright laughed at that. “Asking a thief for payment? My, my, you’re losing your edge.”

 

\------

 

When she showed up at the office, it was in neat, professional attire, everything crisp and wrinkle free. Her skirt may have been a little short, and her makeup a little heavy, but she was still a businesswoman. Just one a little open to other interpersonal relationships when it suited her.

The house was on a hill, she noticed. The drive meandered up an incline, past trees and pretty greenery. They'd passed the gateway two minutes ago. _Dragons make lairs on mountaintops_ , she thought. _As solitary creatures, they prefer their territory to be distant and intimidating._

The car finally pulled to a stop in front of a massive house, and she left the car without thanking the driver. He was there to get her out; she'd thank him when he finished his job, and no sooner. Nor did she watch when the car pulled away, back down the impossible drive. She walked up to the door instead, heels clacking against the stone and pavement.

It didn't feel right, walking here. She could play a persona of wealth and Oxbridge level prestige, but standing on the property made her feel small. The walk from the end of the driveway to the front door was long, awkwardly so. There should've been more ornamentation, some shrubbery lining the way. It felt empty, but she was almost convinced that it was her fault somehow. Her fault for intruding on a picturesque manor, throwing everything out of proportion. Her clothes suddenly felt ridiculous. This was a dragon, and she had come dressed as a pretty young lady. She should've stayed in the car, far away from the man lurking in these walls.

Finally, she stepped up to the door. With nervous anticipation, she rang the doorbell. She expected a servant, but instead, the door opened to a man in an ill-fitted suit and a dull-eyed woman.

"Good morning," the man said, pleasantly. "You are my new assistant?"

"Yes," she replied, keeping her eyes away from the woman. She couldn't afford to look now.

"Ah. And your name was...?"

Her brain went blank. "Anthea," she said. That hasn't been the name she wanted to give, but it would have to do, for he was inviting her in now, past the threshold into his domain. She stepped through, thinking of stalactites.

He lead her to a sitting room of sorts, with big, posh sofas. When she sat down, it felt like she was being swallowed up.

"So glad you could come," he said, keeping his tone mild. His voice was higher pitched than she'd expected, more tenor than raspy bass. "The last few secretaries I hired were good, but not...up to snuff, as it were.”

It was not sinister in the least, but she could not stop thinking of the blank look in the woman's face. There had been a ring on her finger made of unornamented gold. She did not dare check the man's hand to see if there was another. There likely was another. She kept herself conversational too. "I hope I will do well, sir.”

A loud thump came from upstairs, and something that sounded like a yell. She jumped, torn between wanting to run and wanting to draw a weapon. But she played up the surprise instead. “Oh? What was that?”

He gave her no acknowledgment, only glancing at his wife, who seemed incapable of even looking back. “Check on her, would you?” he asked, and she flinched even though he never did anything at all aggressive.

“Was that your mother?” she asked, watching his wife leave. “Upstairs?”

He frowned for a moment. "Yes. I appreciate your concern, but you should remember that I’m not employing you as a caretaker.”

And she knew not to ever mention Lady Holmes in his presence. She nodded quickly.

“While we’re on the subject of expectations,” he added, “if you will be my personal secretary, I expect for you to use the resources I offer."

She recalled the car that had pulled up beside her flat. "I didn't want to be a burden, sir."

He didn't respond, save for a noncommittal hum. _He'll try to get at you,_  Irene Adler had said. _You need to trust in your layers._

“It would be easier, I think, if I provide my own transportation,” she said again. “You’d have one less thing to worry about. And that’s what an assistant is for, yes? To make things easier.”

“Very well,” he said. He rose from his seat. “Come to my office. I shall help you get situated.”

She blinked, caught by surprise again. This was not good. It was never good when anyone capitulated that quickly. But she was still in one piece, which was more than could be said for many others who had gone this way. So she followed him, down a winding hallway with many heavily ornamented doors.

"These rooms were for residence," he explained. "They're no longer needed, of course. I'd suggest staying away."

She thought of Bluebeard, of men and dead wives. Most dragons were not nearly as neat with their kills. Well, not neat. Inconspicuous. He wouldn’t be so careless as to leave his conquests rotting in rooms where they could be found and used to incriminate him, but that didn't make all those closed doors any less unnerving. She kept looking back, spying cracks in the doorways, rooms that weren't entirely shut. Of course, in a house like this, they were all closed tightly. The only way they'd open is if the maid unlocked them for some dusting. She wondered what kind of person the maid would be. Or any of the rest of the people working in this house.

After ascending a flight of stairs, they stopped in front of a doorway, propped open. Inside was a desk, Her things had already been brought there. She put a hand to her mouth. "Oh." She hadn't even handed her things off to anyone. Had there been anyone when she entered the house and sat down with her boss?

He smiled indulgently when he saw her surprise. "I took the liberty of setting up your desk ahead of time," he said. "Although, you won't exactly be needing it often."

"Oh?"

"I have a great many offices around the city," he explained, looking rather satisfied. "It's because of the nature of my work. Depending on what needs to be done, I may need to be elsewhere. Or, well, you will need to be there. Did I mention that you will need to accompany on my travels?"

In a car. She would have to travel in a car with  _him_. She didn't expect him to be brazen enough to do something ridiculous with her, but being in such confined spaces with something that could overpower her?  _A thief never chooses direct confrontation._   _A thief always has a way out_.

But of course, there was nothing about thieves dealing with dragons. No one simply dealt with one.

"But sir, would it not be easier if I went there alone?" she asked. "If I am to be trusted with your business, then surely, there would be no reason for you to come with me. It would be redundant, sir."

"But this is your first day, Anthea," he said, placing odd emphasis on her name. Well, an effort at disguise was better than nothing. "How am I to make sure that you are doing what needs to be done?"

She pulled out her iPhone. "I am sure that there are other ways you could keep an eye on me."

He stared at her for a while, considering something. Then he took the phone out of her hand. "Rubbish," he said. "No employee of mine will use something so outdated."

"Sir," she protested, almost genuinely insulted. "That's the latest model there is." More modern than some on the commercial market anyway.

"That's what you think." For a panicked moment, she thought he had somehow used telepathy, and was sure that she'd be roasted alive just then. But instead he handed her a small, unassuming Blackberry. "I believe this would be more to your liking."

She did not take it at first. Dragons certainly did not give gifts, and receiving anything from a magical creature was sure to bring all sorts of unneeded headaches. But she had already entered a contract of sorts with him. So she took the phone from him. When she looked through the applications, her eyes widened with surprise (and at least some delight).

"This can--"

"Shh," he said. "No need to give it all away. At least, not to those without clearance."

"I've got clearance?" Perhaps this job would have its perks.

"Well, you're working for me, aren't you?" he asked. "Now go. The car's waiting for you outside. I'll give you the details while the car is on the way there. Traffic will be bad enough to give me time to fill you in."

Quietly, she grinned. Not even dragons could fix city traffic. "On my way then, sir."

As she turned and headed out the door, he said, "By the way, what was your name?"

"Anthea, sir," she said. Or tried to say. The words wouldn't come out. His smile was much more animalistic now.

"Sorry? I didn't hear you."

Well, she'd paid harsher prices for some of her deals. "Marceline," she answered. And she left the room before he could say another word.

_It could be worse_ , she thought, making her way down the hall to the front door. She had seen the dragon and walked away. That was more than many could say. So what if he was trying to get at her? She had plenty of names, more than there were rooms in this house. If he was going to take them from her, so be it. He would not have hers for a while yet. But she held the Blackberry warily in her hand, unsure if she could trust it. She'd left her bag in the office, and she had no pockets. Although, for all she knew, it would be better to keep in on hand and in sight.

When the car pulled up, she recognized the driver  _she'd_ hired to come here.

The ride to her first assignment was very long indeed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, sorry about how late this is. But hey, it's posted now.
> 
> I started typing out Anthea's half of the story, then realized it was too long for just one chapter. So I'm splitting it in half. You're getting three chapters now! The last part will be posted on the 26, or around thereabouts. A belated Christmas gift of sorts.
> 
> Oh, and if there are any errors, please feel free to point them out. I've forgone my usual level of editing to get this out. So I apologize in advance for any errors.


	3. The Lovers

Whether it was luck or skill, life with her new job worked out. She did not get herself killed, and she actually stayed away from her boss for the most part. Honestly, she shouldn't have expected him to really accompany her. Dragons were not known for their industriousness. Well, aside from arson and pillaging, but that wouldn't have helped him achieve his goals. Whatever those goals were.

But there were always moments.

Even as lazy as he was, her boss would pay a visit to his offices at least once a month. Sometimes he would patrol the city in a sleek black car. The traffic would part for him then, the average driver wary of a vehicle that radiated that much authority. On these trips, he would ask her to accompany him. They would sit in the back together, reclining in high quality leather seats. She was a connoisseur even at the worst of times, but it was hard to relax and enjoy the ride when the man sitting next to her insisted on proximity and made a habit of giving her unnerving looks. She'd take refuge in her phone then, fiddling with the settings and occasionally sneaking in a game or two. _Dragons are territorial_ , she would recite, to calm her nerves. _If they stake a claim on something, they will obsess over it and guard it jealously. They hate nothing more than stolen or damaged property_.

On one of these drives, he placed his left hand next to her thigh. She pushed it away, and noticed that his ring finger was bare. Though he never touched her, or made a similar move after that day, she always wondered if he would.

Another time, he sent her on a reconnaissance mission, forcing her to run about London, doing research and snooping in on several meetings. Only to reveal, when she finally stumbled back to his office, that he had all the information already. This was not something dragons did, that was something smartass politicians did to test their underlings. But that didn't make her position any less precarious. Surely, he'd use the slightest excuse to get her fired (and eaten).

She hadn't seen his wife in a while either. About two weeks and a half after she started working, the wife had just vanished. And the wife seemed to be as taboo a subject as the mother. (She didn't really need to ask, anyway. his expression had been answer enough.)

He never stopped asking for her name. She just went down the list, day by day. Annalise, Henrietta, Guinevere, Rosaline. Some days he even nodded in approval at her choice, always at her most ridiculous suggestions. She would quietly pity his hypothetical daughter each time. And then realize that his daughter would be a biological monstrosity. How would a dragon-human marriage even work?

Therein lay the danger. He looked human and spoke like a human (albeit a human who came from the poshest of boarding schools), but he was not human. Forgetting that would kill her. She couldn't afford to forget. She'd have to kill him, after all, to fulfill the plan. And if she wasn't careful, the wrong person would die.

 

\------

 

It wasn't that she was defenseless, or didn't push back at him. She was learning who he was in the time she spent working for him. For one thing, he had a particular weakness for baked goods. On his birthday, she bought a cake for him, leaving it in his office with a short note written neatly on the napkin. The note was never signed, but he thanked her.

_Dragons have delicate stomachs. Though their mouths and respiratory passages are very heat resistant, their other internal organs are as soft as any other creature's. The right poison could quickly lay them low._

That would probably be the way she'd kill him. Swordfighting was not her specialty, and she'd lose in direct combat anyway. Besides, she wasn't against making her victim happy before death. She killed for business, not sadism. Sadism was too messy--a weakness instead of a strength.

Other things she found through some careful investigative work. As it turned out, the household staff were far more helpful than she'd expected. With their help, she soon memorized the layout of the house (although some of the secret passages were hard to keep track of). There were scraps of biography, scrounged from eyewitness accounts and some records smuggled to her by a clerk (government and bureaucracy do love their paper trails).

Sometimes he handed bits of himself to her, without anything more than a question. The second month, he showed her one of the off-limits rooms in his downtown office.

"This is the CCTV room," he said, gesturing at the monitors around them. "I have direct control over all the surveillance cameras in London."

"What about elsewhere? Outside of the city?"

He smiled possessively. "I could," he said, relishing the possibility. "But I don't really need to. Only the city holds what I am looking for."

She wanted so badly to ask what that was, but really, that would be too obvious of a move. "What should I be looking for?" she asked instead.

"I'll tell you when I need you to help me with surveillance," he said.

Not even a week later, she was summoned to the CCTV room, first thing in the morning. She found her boss inside, wearing yesterday's suit and looking rather worse for wear. The room was uncomfortably warm. She left and came back with a coffee and a danish.

"Oh, I couldn't," he said on reflex, when he saw the pastry.

"You've spent the night looking," she said. "I'm sure you'd prefer not to burn yourself out. You've got other affairs to attend to."

He did not smile, although there was the barest flicker of amusement in his eyes as he replied, "I don't think I'm capable of being burned out, Anthea."

"Merida," she said.

"You and your names," he sighed. "Surely, you must be running out of aliases."

"I have no idea what you mean by that, sir." Finally, he accepted the breakfast, eating slowly. She waited patiently for an explanation.

"There's this man I'm searching for," he said. "Tall man, black curly hair, wearing a Belstaff greatcoat." He rattled off a list of very specific characteristics from memory, including locations the target frequented. She had to start typing it down.

Clearly, a person of high importance. Probably an enemy or a threat. Carefully, she pushed for one more piece of information. "Name?"

He frowned and looked at her in confusion. "Why would it matter?"

She shrugged, trying to keep herself nonchalant. "You're likely going to ask me to go after this man at some point. You might as well tell me now."

He nodded. "Reasonable enough. Sherlock Holmes. His name is Sherlock Holmes."

Her fingers stilled on the keyboard. His younger brother? What advantage would keeping track of him bring? There was no inheritance issue here, not with a younger brother and not one so apathetic about power. Eliminating him would make no difference. So why stay up so long to try and track him down? Why send her after him? There was no sense in that.

Unless the purpose was merely supervision. Unless it wasn't the dragon, but the man. Sherlock Holmes was a reckless man who had no consideration for the law and even less consideration about his health. He frequented places where drug dealers kept shop. A power hungry dragon cared nothing about a man like that, but a brother...

She looked at her boss, hunched in his seat, bloodshot eyes glued to a monitor.

A brother would care enough to spend all night looking after him.

Times like these it was especially easy to forget he wasn't human. Times like these made her wonder if he truly was.

 

\------

 

The best moment by far was when she finally found a solution for the name situation.

"Anthea," he said, ready to assign her on some other typical errand.

"My name is Paris, sir," she replied, not looking up from her phone.

He scoffed. "Surely, you're not going to go through all the cities. I do despise location-based names."

"Sir, it is my name," she replied, coolly. "Unless you want me to pick something nicer? Like Vienna, perhaps?"

At that point, he turned on his heel and stalked away. It made her smile into her hand. Why hadn't she thought of this earlier? City names were the one thing he couldn't possibly take away from her, not if he wanted her to still be his assistant. Of course, there would come a day where she didn't feel like a Sofia or a Sydney, and some cities just didn't work as names. But since when did that matter? Not in her profession.

She went about her business as usual that day, and when it came time to leave, he went straight up to her desk. He looked quite cross.

Oh. Well, she supposed that simply firing her would be the most efficient way to eliminate her and her inconveniences. She put on a brave face, checked for the nearest escape routes, and asked, "What did you want, sir? I was ready to leave."

He pulled a face and said, "Ms...Vienna, I must congratulate you on your ingenuity."

"How kind of you, sir," she replied. And she meant it.

 

\------

 

From then on, he used whatever name she gave him, no matter how ridiculous. She spent an entire day as Mr. Bean, and another as Liberace.

And then one day, five months in, he went up to her desk and said, "Anthea, I need to speak to you."

"Sir," she said, confused, "my name is Marlene."

"Anthea," he said, "you have been insolent and intolerably cheeky. This behavior must be rectified."

"Sir, I think we have a misunderstanding--"

"You think that you can speak and negotiate with me as an equal," he said, eyes cold. "You have undermined my authority, and I cannot allow that to continue."

"I've been doing what you've asked, sir," she said, trying to be reasonable. "What have I neglected to do?"

"I asked for a woman," he said. "Not just an assistant."

"I am a woman in both sex and gender," she replied, gesturing to herself. "If you're speaking of something else, then..."

He grabbed her shoulder, his cold skin making her flinch. "I am."

She jumped out off her chair, knocking it over and shoving his hand away. “What you seem to be forgetting, sir,” she said, “is that I’m not your property. I may listen to you, I may obey your orders, but that is because I consent to it. I do not have to give my consent."

"Is that so?" he asked. "Because in a job like this, it is always good to please your employer."

 "It is so," she said. "I defer to you professionally, and only professionally. The instant you deal with me outside those parameters, the rules change. When it comes to who I am and how I live my life, I am the authority and no one can tell me to act contrary to how I wish."

"You defer to the law," he said. "And in this case, I may as well be the law. Why shouldn't you defer?"

"Who said I deferred to the law?" she asked. "Certainly not me. And you are not deferring to the law either, in this case. No law allows you to treat a person in such a way."

"You would be surprised how limited the scope of law is," he said. "That is why I am here at all."

"I doubt that you realize how much you are governed by your human heart."

He smiled, teeth looking sharper than usual. "Shame. I expected better of you. You've been the most perceptive thus far."

"I have to be perceptive. How many other women have you devoured this way? Employing and preying on them. "

"It's quite an efficient system," he said, proudly.

"One that I've now beaten," she said. And then she raced up the stairs to the hidden room. The maid had given her one more piece of useful information.

Three sharp turns, one and a half of a staircase, and two hidden doors later, she found the room. The door, compared to all the others, was plain, painted an ordinary brown. 

 She could heart someone inside, crying, "No, don't, leave, don't be stupid."

She stayed there, feeling the house start to shake, floorboards shrieking from excess weight. "I know you're there!" she called, with an idiot's bravery. "I know you can hear me. So, how about we converse like the two civilized people we know we are?"

The shaking intensified, until she had to shift her stance to keep from falling over. Thudding footsteps came up the stairs, closer and closer. She couldn't believe it. Had she made a mistake? He'd shown all the signs.

The air behind her neck burned. She screamed.

A cold hand wrapped around hers on the doorknob, holding it still. "You were scared," the dragon said, standing right behind her. "You screamed. You were never scared before."

She let out a shaky breath, heart still pounding like a panicked bird. "Of course I was scared," she said. "You were a monster. You wanted to eat me."

Neither moved, though they were pressed extremely close to each other. His hand tightened on the doorknob. "You won't go in," he said. "I won't allow it."

"Why?" He did not answer. "Why don't you want me to go in? Are you afraid too?"

"Dragons are not afraid."

"But you are," she said. "Your hand is right on top of mine. Do you think I don't notice your clammy palms?"

"She is mine and you will stay away," he snarled, voice dropping to a growling bass.

"Why do you want her so much? She's no use to you." Every word she said was another risk, but she kept pushing. "The inheritance is yours. You hold the city in your hands. What more could you possibly gain from keeping an old lady locked up in your lair?"

"She has a use yet," he muttered.

She pulled a face of mock surprise. "Oh really? Do tell."

"It does not concern you."

"It does if this is how you act towards people. You fear for their safety, don't you?"

"When there are people like you out there," he replied. "Let go of the doorknob."

She wiggled her fingers beneath his iron grip to make a point. "You're pinning my hand there. You must let go first."

He frowned. "This isn't going to be some roundabout metaphor, is it?"

She cracked a smile. "Depends. Will you stay until my blood supply is cut off?"

He let go, and they both backed away from the door. "You know I wouldn't have killed her," she said. "I came here to free her."

"And to kill me," he said. "So, little rogue, what are you to do now that your schemes have been discovered?"

"You accuse me of scheming?" she asked, feeling honestly hurt. "That's rather harsh a word."

"When you've selfish intentions, I can think of no better word." And he was legitimately angry with her.

"It wasn't purely selfish."

"Let me remind you," he said, as restrained as ever, even in his anger, "that you are no better than I."

I could be the better man, though," she said. It was easy to be brave if she didn't care about making it out the door. "I could say things. Scandals can still touch you."

"Scandal?" He laughed. "As if something so small could touch me. You're not a good knight."/p>

"This is the land of St. George. You'll find we have an interesting history with dragons."

"I suppose," Mycroft replied, lazily. "But I seem to have done rather well here. Tell me, what would stop me from just killing you right now? Because I have an interesting history with women. And I could write some interesting history about lady knights."

"I won't go there. I'm not a knight, sir," she said.

He raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Then what are you, then?"

"A thief, sir," she said, setting her phone down on his desk. "And I believe we owe each other professional courtesy."

She gave him a mock curtsy and turned her back on him, walking away. She stood tall, keeping her steps steady and deliberate. But her breathing became a little too measured, the steady in-out of someone trying to keep themselves calm. It wasn't working.

Would it burn? She had felt his breath before, even in his human shell, barely ghosting on her arm like the tongues of a campfire flame. And the horrible heat that had almost consumed her earlier had been bad enough. She had brought no daggers, no weapons besides her words and her layers. And those had been stripped away.

But the fire did not come, even when she turned the corner and saw him waiting there, umbrella in hand. "Well," she said, hoping deep down that this was it.

He inclined his head, looking down at her. "Before you go," he said, "I must ask: What is your name?"

She smiled. "Sir, give me your name first."

"Mycroft," he said. "My name is Mycroft Holmes. Lady Holmes's son, Sherlock Holmes's brother, and, if you wish, your husband."

She walked up to him and kissed him once on the lips.

"Call me Anthea," she said. "Or, better still, call me your darling wife."

It takes a very good thief to steal a scale. But only a thief worthy of legends can steal a dragon's heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is really late, but I suppose this is only to be expected. I need to be better with my deadlines. (Technically my original deadline was flexible, so...)
> 
> Also, this last scene have me a ridiculous amount of trouble. If I get a better idea, I'll possibly go back and edit this, but at this point, I'm done.
> 
> I hope it was good anyway.


End file.
